Sunday, July 01, 2007

Double Parking Heaven

I happened to be at Plaza Damansara a few days ago and I noticed something rather disturbing.Now Plaza Damansara is a nice office area at Damansara Heights.But just like all typical office zones like this, parking is limited... really really limited.

So what do people do

In Paris, people will park there cars centimeters away from each other and release their hand-break so anyone else can just push their car a little to the front or back if he/she wants to come out.But in Malaysia... we ada STYLE.We invented this thing called... DOUBLE PARKING.That means.. you see a car parked properly at a lot, YOU PARK RIGHT BEHIND IT so the other car can't come out without taking a piece of your car with him.

Then once you do that, automatically assume that the driver of the other car will not be needing to leave until you do, so take your time and go do your errants.

While you are paying your bills or something in the nearby bank. you'll probably be hear a car outside sounding the honk in frustration.... wanting to leave but having another car double parked it in.

When you hear something like this... always ignore it and comfort yourself saying that it might be someone else's car that's blocking the way.Not yours.

Then when you come out of the bank and have finished with all your errants, you'll probably see a very pissed off man wanting to leave 30 minutes ago but can't because your car was in the way.

Don't worry.. always remember that you're in an office area, and the person you just pissed off is probably a white collared worker.The very most he will do is scold you and your mother and throw some empty threats at you... but they're all empty.If on the other hand, you double-parked at Chow Kit.... then the person you pissed off would probably be waiting with a few of his friends, all with durians in their hands by the time you get back to your car.

Now sometimes, people like to double-park double-parkers.

That's like ... karma...

You screw people.. someone else will come and screw you back... you double-park someone, someone else will double-park you.

So it becomes a threesome or... triple-parking!

Well, at Plaza Damansara... everyone ADA STYLE.

There was double-parking on both sides of the road, and double parked in the most creative ways ever.

In Penang... we are much nicer than that. We don't double-park.. right guys?

I think this is common because there's not a lot of land to begin with. We never ever pay for parking here (1st culture shock) and the parking lots are HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE!!! (2nd culture shock)

3rd culture shock is when driving on the highway, and you crest up on a hill, you can see for miles and miles and miles in Minnesota. oh em gee.

Fourth culture shock ... or culture shiok for me is when you cross the street, people WILL stop for you regardless if your eyes are looking up or not. I can finally read in peace and cross the street without being interrupted!!!

Double park can also be in a courteous manner, yeah ada style. Sometimes, double parking is just unavoidable! So what I do is, I leave my name card and a note "If I am blocking your way out, please call me at xxx-xxxxxxx. Sorry and thank you." So far no issues at all, hehe 'cuz I never received any calls before.

But some idiots out there or just call them uncivilized ppl are just hopeless.

In the major cities of course la but usually right inside the city you must pay when theres not enough parking. But I've never lived somewhere where I had to pay for parking to enjoy entertainment. And even in the cities the have a set max amount that is reasonable like $5 whole day after 5 hrs. And everywhere in USA after 6pm ALL parking is free even those that charge. Nice right? lol we always go at 5pm, then wait until past 6pm when the gates just are left open and drive out. No need pay for the hour either.

Double parking and triple parking is the way of life in KL. Some who're more considerate will leave their number on the dashboard while the inconsiderate ones will just disappear without a trace.

Sometimes you really don't have a choice but to double park simply bcoz there's not enough parking space everywhere in KL but normally i'll leave my number together with a sorry note.

I remember there was once i saw a guy smashing the window of a car blocking his car and removed the hand brake so he could push the car aside in Hartamas Square coz he ran out of patient and he didn't know how else to contact the driver. Too bad for that fella blocking his carla.

Luckily we don't have this sort of culture in Penang yet even in our busiest area. Unfortunately, i saw some KL-registered cars attempting to bring their culture to Penang at Gurney Drive. No thanks!:p

u should see the people parking at town house area in a taman called happy garden. they triple park at night, leave enough space for 2 cars to go thru, in the morning when the cars go to work, the inner ones go off leaving the triple parked cars in the middle of the road. nice!

What I remember when I went with 5 of my friends for supper near the Taman Free School area, we encountered such a case. It was a Kancil. We waited patiently for 10 minutes but the owner did not come over to move the car. We honked for 5 minutes still no one came over.

We did what was the next best thing. We carried the car and left it in the middle of the road. As we moved our car from the parking lot, we saw a policeman drove by and issued a summon to the car owner.

Haha...that was my college days. After thinking back what we did, I had a good laugh. What a irresponsible car owner that was. Served him right.